“Rendered Invisible Speaks: Rail Against the Numbness ”

The shootings: there needs to be a revival—spiritually, mentally, morally.

Speaking from The White House, the President said that we as a nation are “numb” after yet another senseless siege of slayings, this one on October 1, 2015, at Umqua Community College in Roseland, Oregon, where nine people were slain, ranging in age from 18-67 years old.

Recently, in Cleveland, Ohio, the black police chief, Calvin Williams, wept for five-month-old, Aavielle Wakefield, who was slain in a drive-by shooting, on the same date as the Oregon shootings. Also in Cleveland, a three-year-old, Major Howard, was recently slain in a drive-by, and, before that, a five-year-old, Ramon Burnett, was also slain in a drive-by. All three babies were killed within a few weeks.

Tonight, I will attend a “Black Lives Matter” gathering in Nashville, TN. Black Lives Matter boldly proclaims something that this nation hasn’t always acknowledged: the value of black lives. In this nation, there has always been selectivity in terms of which lives matter and which lives don’t. How does one go through life knowing “my life matters less”?

The babies slain in Cleveland didn’t know the fate awaiting them: the bullets which killed them, or the fact that, had they been blessed to grow to maturity, their lives would have devalued by someone, based on the color of their skin. We—who are conscious and caring--must rail and rally against “the numbness”; we must pray and protest against the numbness. And, for those babies not slain by senseless souls shooting guns, we must inculcate within them the spiritual, mental and moral sensibilities and strength to help them stand up against anyone, any force, which attempts to render them invisible, or devalue them in any way.